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Depraved! NYPD officers slam visibly pregnant woman on pavement, use stun gun on her belly

David Edwards
Rawstory.com
Wed, 24 Sep 2014 03:38 UTC
Image
© Rawstory
The New York Police Department (NYPD) launched an investigation this week after a watchdog group released video showing officers in Brooklyn slamming a pregnant woman on the ground.

On Tuesday, police watchdog group El Grito de Sunset Park posted video of a Saturday confrontation between police and 17-year-old John Lemos.

According to the group, the woman said that officers were harassing her 17-year-old son, John Lemos, for a prior robbery arrest. Police, however, said that they were trying to arrest Lemos for possession of a knife.

"According to this young man, the cops, when they put the razor blade in his pocket, they told him, 'We're going to make sure this time, it sticks,'" Dennis Flores of El Grito de Sunset Park explained. "So the mom saw this, started yelling out, and the cops grabbed her and slammed her against the floor like we see in the video. And they put a Taser to her stomach."

"She is pregnant! Oh my gosh!" a person in the recording can be heard yelling.

The pregnant woman said that the stun gun left burns on her stomach. Police were also seen slamming another woman on the ground when she allegedly tried to interfere.

Flores told WABC that Lemos's mother was still trying to recover.
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Bad Guys

Forest Service says media needs photography permit in wilderness areas, alarming First Amendment advocates

Rob Davis
The Oregonian
Tue, 23 Sep 2014 17:46 UTC
Mount Hood
© The Oregonian/2013
First Amendment advocates are alarmed by a U.S. Forest Service policy requiring journalists to get a permit to shoot videos in federal wilderness areas including those on Mount Hood.
The U.S. Forest Service has tightened restrictions on media coverage in vast swaths of the country's wild lands, requiring reporters to pay for a permit and get permission before shooting a photo or video in federally designated wilderness areas.

Under rules being finalized in November, a reporter who met a biologist, wildlife advocate or whistleblower alleging neglect in any of the nation's 100 million acres of wilderness would first need special approval to shoot photos or videos even on an iPhone.

Permits cost up to $1,500, says Forest Service spokesman Larry Chambers, and reporters who don't get a permit could face fines up to $1,000.

First Amendment advocates say the rules ignore press freedoms and are so vague they'd allow the Forest Service to grant permits only to favored reporters shooting videos for positive stories.

"It's pretty clearly unconstitutional," said Gregg Leslie, legal defense director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Alexandria, Va. "They would have to show an important need to justify these limits, and they just can't."

Liz Close, the Forest Service's acting wilderness director, says the restrictions have been in place on a temporary basis for four years and are meant to preserve the untamed character of the country's wilderness.

Close didn't cite any real-life examples of why the policy is needed or what problems it's addressing. She didn't know whether any media outlets had applied for permits in the last four years.

She said the agency was implementing the Wilderness Act of 1964, which aims to protect wilderness areas from being exploited for commercial gain.

"It's not a problem, it's a responsibility," she said. "We have to follow the statutory requirements."
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Telescope

'I'm an atheist' because science is 'more convincing' than God - Stephen Hawking

David Edwards
Raw Story
Wed, 24 Sep 2014 00:01 UTC
Stephen_Hawking
© The Guardian
Stephen Hawking clarified this week that he was an atheist because science had provided him with a "more convincing" explanation of the origins of the universe. According to NBC News, Hawking made the comments to the Spanish-language paper El Mundo during the Starmus Festival at Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

El Mundo's Pablo Jauregui pointed out that Hawking had written in his book A Brief History of Time that scientists could "know the mind of God" if a unifying set of principles - or theory of everything - was discovered to explain the physical universe. But Hawking later wrote in The Grand Design that God was no longer necessary because science had provided a better understanding of the universe.

"Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe," the world-famous theoretical physicist told Jauregui. "But now science offers a more convincing explanation."

"What I meant by 'we would know the mind of God' is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn't," he added. "I'm an atheist."

But Hawking does believe that humans are not alone in the universe, and that meeting extraterrestrial life could be like Christopher Columbus coming to the Americas.

"Which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans," he warned.

"The idea that we are alone in the universe seems to me completely implausible and arrogant," Hawking told the paper. "Considering the number of planets and stars that we know exist, it's extremely unlikely that we are the only form of evolved life."


Via NBC News

Comment: Mr. Hawking is coming from this perspective:
  • Analytic Thinking Can Promote Atheism
But at the same time, rigidity of thinking can produce this: Still there is hope for developing a higher understanding:
  • Science and Religion

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Sherlock

Police chief's daughter among suspects charged in Philadelphia gay-bashing, enjoys blacking out and tweeting her homophobia

David Ferguson
Raw Story
Wed, 24 Sep 2014 01:06 UTC
Image
© Katherine Knott, Twitter
Katherine Knott apparently enjoys blacking out
One of the suspects charged in the vicious beating of two gay men on a street in Philadelphia is a police chief's daughter whose Twitter feed is littered with antigay slurs, tweets about binge drinking and blackouts and about how awful it is when your parents write you a check instead of just giving you cash.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday morning that two of the three suspects wanted in the case surrendered to police after they were identified by social media users who matched their Facebook photos with security footage taken on the night of the attack.

Prosecutors told the AP that 24-year-old Philip Williams and 24-year-old Katherine Knott face charges of criminal conspiracy, aggravated and simple assault, and reckless endangerment, as does their co-defendant, 26-year-old Kevin Harrigan, who is still at large.
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Sheriff

Crazy cop rips open car door and yells at man for exercising his rights

Matt Agorist
Free Thought Project
Sun, 21 Sep 2014 00:55 UTC
Image
© Video screen grab/Ryan Scott
‘Driving is a privilege not a right,’ the cop barked while violating Ryan Scott’s Fourth Amendment rights and illegally entering his car.
Highly questionable "Road side safety check" looks like a scene from military boot camp. A video uploaded to Facebook Saturday paints a vivid picture of the American police state. Over the last decade the United States has witnessed an all-out attack on the Constitution. Freedom to travel unmolested is becoming a thing of the past.

Bi-partisan support from all levels of State and Federal government wage war on your ability to remain secure in your belongings and the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Remember however, that your constitutional rights still apply in these roadblock situations.

Though police are permitted to stop you briefly, they may not search you or your car unless they have probable cause that you're under the influence or you agree to the search. As such, you are not required to answer their questions or admit to breaking the law.

Comment: More and more we see examples of cops completely out of control and violating the rights of ordinary Americans, innocent of any crime.

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Network

Big changes to Facebook makes online retailers weary


RT
Wed, 24 Sep 2014 23:45 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Dado Ruvic
Facebook will unveil a new advertising platform as early as next week, according to recent reports, but some online retailers say they're weary of what the changes will soon bring to the already all powerful social networking site.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on Monday that Facebook will announce its new ad platform next week, the likes of which will aim to help marketers more successfully target the website's audience by supplying them with tools and statistics intended to bring commercial content to users more specifically than before.

Atlas, as the platform is known, "promises to help marketers understand which Facebook users have seen, interacted with or acted upon ads that appear both on Facebook's services and on third-party websites and apps," Jack Marshall wrote Monday for the Journal.

"It will also provide an automated ad-buying tool known in the industry as a 'demand-side platform' or 'bidder,' which will offer marketers the ability to buy ads that target Facebook's members as they move around the web," the Journal reported.

Now on the heels of that revelation, another journalist at the paper reported on Tuesday this week that, coupled with other recent changes to the way the social networking site collects information, Facebook is being faced with significant blowback by the advertisers who are expected to help earn the site $12.2 billion this year alone.

Comment: For more information on the machinations of Facebook:

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Eiffel Tower

Political machinations: Sarkozy corruption probe suspended days after announcing his comeback


France24
Wed, 24 Sep 2014 00:00 UTC
Sarkozy
© Reuters / Gonzalo Fuentes
Former French bling-bling President Nicolas Sarkozy.
A corruption probe involving former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been temporarily suspended, a judicial source said Wednesday. The case relates to Sarkozy's alleged attempt to seek inside information from a magistrate investigating him.

The Paris appeals court decided Tuesday to freeze the investigation into influence-peddling pending a review of Sarkozy's request to have the case dismissed, a source close to the investigation told AFP on Wednesday. The suspension could last several months.

Sarkozy was placed under formal investigation in July over the corruption allegations. Investigators are seeking to establish whether Sarkozy, with the help of his lawyer, attempted to pervert the course of justice by seeking to obtain inside information from a high court magistrate about a probe into possible misdeeds in the financing of his 2007 election campaign.

Comment: How convenient that the French judicial system appears to be opening the doors to facilitate Sarkozy's return to politics. Just more unsurprising evidence that the systems are rigged. Does anyone doubt that all the widespread corruption cases plaguing him will be swept under the rug?

Sarkozy announces his slimy return to French politics
Sarkozy corruption charge is just one of a number of scandals the former French president is embroiled in

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Wolf

Tiger kills young man at Indian zoo (graphic video)


RT
Wed, 24 Sep 2014 16:14 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Anindito Mukherjee
Zoo workers carry the body of a school student who was mauled to death by a white tiger at the National Zoological Park in New Delhi September 23, 2014
An Indian school student has been attacked and killed by a white tiger at a New Delhi zoo. The young man jumped over security barriers before falling over five meters into the tigers' enclosure, where he was mauled to death.

The incident happened just after 1 pm local time Tuesday, when the youngster, identified as Maqsood, fell or jumped into the enclosure. He was immediately confronted by the animal. Onlookers tried to throw stones at the tiger to distract it, but to no avail.

"After he fell down, the white tiger which was further inside the enclosure came towards Maqsood. As the tiger came closer, he clasped his hands and seemed to be praying. The tiger watched Maqsood closely for almost 15 minutes," an onlooker told the Indian Express.

After the standoff, the big cat swiped at him before crushing his neck with a single bite.

"We are all in a complete state of shock," said Amitabh Agnihotri, the director of the city's National Zoological Park.
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Bell

Russia not ignoring war crimes: Calls for probe into executions/beheadings in east Ukraine


RT
Wed, 24 Sep 2014 15:54 UTC
Fedotov

Mikhail Fedotov
Russia is calling for an international investigation into the discovery of burial sites with signs of execution at locations where the Ukraine National Guard forces were stationed two days earlier.

The head of Russia's presidential human rights council, Mikhail Fedotov, has called on the authorities to do everything to "ensure an independent international probe" and "let international human rights activists and journalists" gain access to the site in Eastern Ukraine's embattled Donetsk region.

The crime, Fedotov noted, shouldn't "remain without consequences." He didn't exclude the discovery of other burial sites, reminding that mass killings are "the reality of the modern-day war" and that such crimes were committed in the wars in the former Yugoslavia.

The burial sites near the Kommunar mine, 60 kilometers from Donetsk, were first discovered on Tuesday by self-defense forces.

Four bodies have been exhumed, including those of three women. Their hands were tied, at least one of the bodies was decapitated, self-defense fighters said.


Comment: More evidence of crimes against humanity committed by Ukrainian forces: Note that the second link includes the discovery of another burial site, 8 bodies, one of them decapitated.

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Dollars

Silencing criticism of Israel through donor blackmail

Lawrence Davidson
Consortium News
Mon, 22 Sep 2014 14:49 UTC
separation wall
© Ted Lieverman
A portion of the separation wall built by the Israeli government jutting into the town of Bethlehem to enclose the tomb of Rachel within the Israeli zone. Many portions of the wall contain graffiti and artwork by the Palestinians and their visitors.
Israel's never-ending persecution of Palestinians is opening a chasm between the world's public, which is growing disgusted by Israeli behavior, and Western elites who shy from criticism because of career fears and financial dependence, observes Lawrence Davidson.

Due to Israel's brutal racism and repeated attacks on Palestinian civilians, it is losing popular support internationally. As this happens, the Zionists appear to be intensifying pressure on societal and political elites, particularly in the U.S. and other Western states, to maintain policies that support and protect Israel's criminal behavior.

Their vehicle for achieving this goal has always been financial gifts and donations to elite individuals and institutions. These gifts and donations help grease the wheels, so to speak, of the systems of power through which the elites operate, and create a monetary dependency on, among others, Zionist donors. It also creates an obligation to respond to these donor's needs. The result is a growing disconnect between evolving popular attitudes toward Israel and the static positions held and actions taken by the elites.
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